Composition Basics in Macro Photography

Diagonal lines and compositional weight

Another important thing to bear in mind is that having the major lines in the image parallel to the edges is often unappealing. Try to give your images diagonals, and they will benefit greatly.

Note how the diagonal position of the plant gives this image a dynamic feel. The robber fly seems ready to attack!

The same subject in a poorly-composed image. The parallel lines and lack of lead room render this image boring and unattractive.

This shot has a very dynamic feel, thanks to the diagonal lines prevalent in its background.

This dragonfly’s wings are themselves very strong diagonals. The “X” shape defines the frame, giving it a unique look.

When shooting invertebrates in the classic 'animal standing on a diagonal plant' pose, I avoid having the plant exit the frame at both corners. Why? The subject itself has a compositional weight, reflecting its actual physical weight. Making the plant or twig exit the frame edge closest to the subject at a lower point can enhance the physicality of the shot.

The branch exits the frame under the corner-to-corner diagonal, to balance the katydid's presence.

This orange-tip butterfly adds compositional weight and 'pushes' the leaf on which it’s standing below the diagonal, thus creating a balanced image.

The degree to which you depart from the corner-to-corner diagonal should depend on the compositional weight of the subject. Notice that even though the plant or twig is not exiting the frame at the corner, a good composition often aligns the subject's body part nearest the frame edge with the corner. See the examples below.

Note how the composition completes the corner-to-corner diagonal by pointing the robber fly’s back side exactly toward the corner. This enabled me to maintain balance while using the visual properties of the subject.

This ladybug has little compositional weight, so I allowed myself to place the leaf on which it was standing close to the diagonal.

Tight crops

When deciding whether or not to include a subject's entire body, one guideline to remember is to 'cut hard or not at all'. It’s often problematic to include the whole macro subject in a frame. Apart from anything else, some insects have very long antennae, so including the whole body would mean shooting at a relatively small magnification ratio.

This often conflicts with our wish to obtain good detail in the subject’s body, so sometimes a compromise is necessary, whereby we crop just some of our subject's protruding body parts. Yet this can often be a mistake that seriously hurts the balance in the image, leaving us with neither good composition nor good detail.

My advice? If you find long body parts too obstructive, just get as close as you need without regard for cutting them off. You’ll sometimes get a very good, detailed and balanced result even if you leave a large portion of your subject out of the frame.

When shooting these red eyed tree frog embryos, I left most of the eggs out of the frame and concentrated on just a few of them as the subject. This not only created an interesting and more abstract look - but it allowed me to unravel the fascinating detail visible in the image. Note that I still put a strong emphasis on a balanced composition. This still has to be considered, especially when cropping tightly.

I cropped out much of this spider’s body in order to get good detail in its front section. Still, the image is well balanced and I am at peace with the composition.

To get better detail on this red eyed tree frog’s semi-transparent eyelid, I cropped out most of its body.

Be bold

It’s extremely important to stress that these rules are meant to be broken. Experiment with composition, try unusual methods and feel free to ignore conventions. But, and this is a big but, always do so with conviction and be thoughtful about it. Breaking the rules is fine, even desirable when you are truly committed to the reason for doing so. This is what art is all about.

For further reading on macro photography take a look at Erez's previous articles in this series:

Erez Marom is a professional nature photographer and photography instructor based in Israel.In July 2012, Erez will lead a macro and nature photography workshop in Costa Rica, where he will explain his photography techniques and methods with which he achieves his unique results. Registration is open for this unique opportunity to learn first hand from one of the world's leading macro artists. Please click on the link for more details. You can also contact Erez on his website or at erezmarom[at]hotmail.com with any questions you might have about the workshop.You can see more of Erez' work at www.erezmarom.com and follow him on his Facebook page and deviantArt gallery.

Comments

How the hell did you get these shots!!! Amazing! esp the damsel fly,,i have tried and tried and tried again to get a dragonfly in flight and only wound up with blurry eyes and a headache! This is all great stuff but that fly is incredible!! I was looking around trying to figure out what to specialize in and macro may be it..

Sure, the rules never change, and can be applied to all the visual arts, but so what? This series is beautifully clear and concise - a few, well-chosen words, and photos that speak volumes. We can see exactly how these classic techniques are applied to a specific application, with masterful effect. Bravo!

I shoot large stacks. But I can't imagine how to set up for a macro stack of an insect. Sometimes my stacks are 100 or more files and takes quite an effort to set up, time consuming... How do you keep these buggers absolutely still for 20 minutes or even longer without killing them?

I love Macro Photography and would like to know how much Post Processing you do and for a beginner that really hates PP, what is a good PP process to begin with. I've tried the Piscaso and this was pretty easy and looks good when printing on my Epson R-1900. I need to take the next step but I'm really not sure which system to try. What did you use for your photos that you shared?Thanks

What i fail to understand is that how are these rules "specific" to macro photography? These are general rules that can be applied to any kind of photography. Though i must admit the example photographs are very well done

Some rules are more specific to macro, such as tight cropping and considering the special shape of insects. Others are less specific, but still important in a comprehensive series about any subject.Glad you liked the images.

Thank you for your great article. I especially appreciate the accompanying example photos since literally sometimes "a picture is worth a thousand words". I hope Dpreview keeps articles like this coming! Thanks.

The images here make me think I have been guilty of some excessively tight cropping of damselfly images. In a month or two's time they should be on the wing again and I will try putting this advice into practice.

@glonislav: Insects are mostly scared by movement perpendicular to their sitting position - like a swooping bird. This will invariably trigger their reflex to skedaddle. A photographer knowing his stuff thus will do anything to avoid this trigger - which means he will not be using the camera hand held but on a tripod with macro focusing rail which allows a straight closing movement. This then allows to use 100mm, or less focal length which will yield more of an impression of depth.

Great photos and useful tips - but I'm still waiting for the killer (if that is the right word, maybe stunning instead?) post on how you get insects in the wild to stay still long enough to photograph them.

@bokane, the trick is to know what kind of behavior will trigger the skedaddle reflex of the insects - it's not the distance as such! It's the kind of movement, if you move directly and linearly towards the insect they will stay until you practically touch their eyes. But move perpendicular to their sitting position and they are gone from any distance. So hand holding the camera is an exceedingly bad idea as your normal movement contains such perpendicular movement components if you want or not. Another thing you should bear in mind is that many insects will return to their last position or if a certain sitting position is well suited to their lifestyle they will often accept one provided by you - this applies to many of the carnivorous species such as dragonflies and hunting flies.

Beautiful pics but to be honest there's nothing new composition wise to be told. The same rules apply always in photography. Any good book on photography will teach exactly the same. The fact that you're shooting a very small animal or part of it doesn't change a thing. DOF is a bigger concern and needs a lot more practising.

Hmmm...It's really a shame then that we didn't publish an article discussing DOF in macro photography. We should have called it something like, I don't know, 'Depth of Field in Macro Photography'. Would have been even better if we had linked to it at the end of this article. Oh well, next time ;-)

well explained and good you mentioned at the end to challenge this rules only than we will develop our own signature (as long as it appeals).Thanks for the reminder of this basic but important compositional rules.

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